In employing motion picture film cameras or video cameras to capture images, it is extremely important to maintain the camera in a stable position in order to obtain a high quality result. This also helps to eliminate the effects of undesirable camera motion appearing in the images. In order to overcome these problems, and to reduce the expense encountered in producing motion picture films and video productions, the “Steadicam®” portable camera stabilizing device was developed. Using this device, which has become a de-facto standard in the industry, high quality results have been obtainable in a variety of circumstances. This is so even when the camera operator walks or runs with the camera because of the attendant increase in stability, particularly in stabilizing quick angular deviations along the axes of pan, tilt and roll, which previously could not be adequately controlled.
The Steadicam® camera stabilizing device is subject to its own patents and thus not discussed or detailed in the present invention. A key component of the Steadicam® camera stabilizing device is its substantially friction-free arm sections which are rotatably and pivotally interconnected at a hinge bracket or socket block. Each arm section is formed as a parallelogram, and is provided with segmented springs which are designed to apply a constant force to compensate for the weight applied to the end of the support arm. As a result of this, the weight carried by the support arm is spatially decoupled from the camera operator to increase isolation of the weight from the operator as well as the camera support itself.
A principal design feature of the support arm, which is critical to proper functioning of the Steadicam® camera stabilizing device, is the ability of the support arm to support the fixed weight of the overall system from its lowest to its highest point of articulation with a relatively constant amount of positive “buoyancy”.
The art of using the Steadicam® camera stabilizing device has maintained itself to the mounting of the Steadicam® camera stabilizing device to the hinge bracket which is secured to or supported by a harness worn around the shoulders of a camera operator, see U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,976,387, 5,360,196 and 4,158,490 for a typical background of how a user supports the Steadicam® camera stabilizing device. However, because of the weight of the camera and the Steadicam® camera stabilizing device a lot of weight is still placed on the shoulders, back and legs of the camera operator. The only recent exception to the harness was the mounting of a camera to a SEGWAY® as shown and described in US Patent Application publication 2007/0205241. However, the modification of a SEGWAY® requires an expensive addition to the cost of the operation of a camera.
A need therefore exists in the art to help reduce the weight placed on a camera operator while keeping the cost of the support system relatively inexpensive. The present invention was designed to meet one or more of these needs.